President Salary 3

County workers will pay 3% to retirement fund

County employees' paychecks will be a little lighter next year as a result of efforts to trim Allen County government spending by about $5.8 million.

Just don't call it a pay cut, insists County Council President Darren Vogt.

“It's still their money, and some employees will keep their jobs because of this,” Vogt said Thursday after Council's 4-3 decision requiring the county's 1,300 full-time employees to contribute 3 percent of their salaries to their retirement funds – an expense previously borne by the county.

Council had voted last month to require departments to make across-the-board cuts of more than 7 percent in their 2012 budget proposals in an effort to offset expected decreases in tax revenues. But Thursday's decision is expected to save the county $1.2 million next year, reducing Council's original $5.8 million target and, Vogt said, the need to reduce staff.

Some employees won't like having to pay into the Public Employees Retirement Fund, he added, “but I don't know one company that pays 100 percent” of employees' retirement benefits. Employees keep money in their PERF accounts even after they no longer work for government. The county will pay 7.25 percent of salaries into PERF next year.

County Auditor Tera Klutz originally proposed using $4.5 million from the county's rainy-day fund to minimize budget cuts next year. But Council last month decided on larger cuts instead because of concerns that the current drop in taxes might continue indefinitely.

Department heads will still be able to appeal the proposed cuts, and could minimize or avoid them altogether if they can convince Council more money is needed. Most departments have not yet finalized their 2012 budgets, Vogt said, so Thursday's decision should not require them to make major changes. Council will hold budget hearings next month.

But even though most county employees will get no raises next year, that may not be true for Sheriff Ken Fries and Chief Deputy Dave Gladieux, who requested increases that Fries told Council are required by a new state law requiring 1.3 percent raises for prosecutors.

Fries said that because county code links his salary to that of the prosecutor, and because the chief deputy's pay is linked to the sheriff's, it would violate state law if his salary is not increased from $130,647 to $132,345, and Gladieux's from $92,759 to $93,965.

Spare Some Change?: "Independent" Wealth? What a Load of Crap.

Actually, the president does get a decent percentage of his/her $400,000 salary for a pension (after running our COUNTRY, with none of the $15 million Wall Street bonuses), but most congress members don't get anywhere near their salaries for life. They DO pay into Social Security, and they ARE on the same retirement plans we were on in the postal service, except that they're required to contribute a bigger chunk of their salaries to them (per Senate website et al .). They also have to serve at least 5 years to be eligible for a partial pension, at least 20 years to be eligible for their full pension at age 50 (same as p.o. and other fed. jobs), or they have to be at least 62 or have served at least 25 years, to collect the money they contributed from their own salaries. There are other factors, too, like military advantage and which specific plans they choose, and whether or not they invest in other savings funds. They also voted overwhelmingly in both 2010 and 2011 to not accept federally mandated cost-of-living increases. Now, as far as the president's salary goes, personally, I wouldn't take less than 5x that amount for trying to guide the lazy, selfish, ignorant, hateful babies that seem to take up a greater percentage of our potentially awesome country every day. We shouldn't be at war, and teachers are dreadfully underpaid, always have been. There's no mistaking those issues. But the problem is still mostly outside of government. Only 20% of our population make over 50% of our aggregate income, with the top 5% making over 20% of it themselves, and these aren't primarily people making a comparatively piddly $400K a year or less. These are also the people with the most tax breaks. "They made it, they should get to keep it," people like to argue. Well, who did they make it OFF of, so to speak? (Besides teachers and soldiers, for starters.) Well, if not the dime-an-hour victims of multiple American human rights violations worldwide, then likely off of the "lower" 80% of Americans who work in their factories and offices and drive their shit around the country. A whopping 80% of our people make less than half the aggregate income. 60% of our people take in around a QUARTER of our aggregate income. (This is all available on the Census site, per the 2010 census, numbers reported by people about themselves, not propagated by the mythical "liberal media.") In other words, say you buy a car from a group of ten people for $100.

Congressional edition

The Spectator

The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant: January 1-October 31, 1876

Up the Organization, How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits

American almanac and repository of useful knowledge